The event, to raise funds for Mr Christie's re-election effort in November, came as a surprise to many political observers who associate Silicon Valley with liberal politics.

Mr Christie, who is considered a leading contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has long presented himself as a pragmatist able to get results in a deeply Democrat state.

In the aftermath of hurricane Sandy in October, he praised President Barack Obama and criticised Republicans in Congress for holding up relief funding for victims of the storm.

Mr Zuckerberg and Mr Christie met each other in 2010, when the Facebook executive donated $US100 million to the school system in Newark, one of New Jersey's most violent cities.

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''Mark and Priscilla have worked closely with Governor Christie on education reform in the Newark school system,'' a Facebook spokesman said.

''They admire his leadership on education reform and other issues and look forward to continuing their important work together on behalf of Newark's schoolchildren.''

Mr Zuckerberg has previously attended events with Mr Obama, including a dinner party in California at which the President joked that he managed to get the internet tycoon to abandon his usual T-shirt in exchange for a shirt and tie.

Little is known about Mr Zuckerberg's politics and US Election Commission records show that his only previous campaign contributions have been to Facebook's in-house political action committee, to which he made two $US10,000 donations in 2011 and 2012.

The Facebook committee donated to figures in both parties last year, such as the Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, and the Democrats' leader in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.